


Darker Days Might Come And Stay

by sharklion



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Post-Apocalypse, ensemble fic, various implied pairings but nothing actually realized
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-03 23:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2892737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharklion/pseuds/sharklion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world doesn't end in flame, crushed beneath uniformed heel, but a lot of lives do.  </p><p>---<br/>After the fusion dimension invades, the ZEXAL cast— for the most part— survives.  The days to come are hard, and there's no end in sight.  Makes more sense if you're familiar with what Arc-V spoilers, for what Arc-V has in store for Heartland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darker Days Might Come And Stay

The world doesn't end in flame, crushed beneath uniformed heel, but a lot of lives do.

By luck, good or bad, Yuuma makes it through, and most his friends. Beneath the horror, the thick layer of grief, there's a spark of relief that the dead are mostly strangers and the guilt from that is crushing. He cries for days, aimlessly, helpless—

He can't duel for vengeance, he _won't_ duel to kill. He'd rather die than go through that, again, but his opponents have no such qualms. Neither do Shark, III, Vector. At night, they switch off who stays with him, and make sure he doesn't duel alone. He won't throw his matches, with their lives on the line too, they know.

—Helpless, he survives.

\---

Kotori stays up nights, Rio giving her dueling lessons. It feels useless, terrifying, her hands shaking as she plays cards on the peeling linoleum floor of their temporary hideout. Even in their practice matches, she loses. There's no point in even stealing her a duel disk. She knows it, Rio knows it, everyone knows it. She's dead weight.

So one night Rio grabs her wrist as she takes out her deck, and stops her. "You do know there's no point to this. Why don't we spend a little girl's night out, instead?"

Now's not the time for that _at all_ , but Rio's hand around her wrist is tight enough to hurt, even if her voice is lilting. Of course Rio is serious. "Oh, sure. Why not?" she giggles, nervously.

Down narrow maintenance hatches, ducts, up hidden ladders and precarious ledges Rio drags Kotori deeper into the city, towards occupied territory. Kotori doesn't dare breathe a word of question, every step a step too close to hunters who will set upon her at the scarcest sign of her presence. She's always been a tagalong, and has gotten good at staying on in silence. It's easy to not ask or think about where and _why_ Rio is leading her there—

The flickering bright lights of the fusion duelist's camps are visible below them, the darkened cracked windows hide them but Rio and Kotori can see out. Without fear, Rio tells Kotori, keeping her voice down but confidence in each quiet syllable, "There's no place for you on the front lines in combat. But back here, we need a scout. All the boys are against it, they say that _no one_ is expendable, but as it is now," she clicks her tongue and holds out a hand, as if for Kotori to take but Kotori knew it was only because Rio's manners weren't so crude as to point, "It's not true."

She pauses, to give space for Kotori argue. To see _if_ she would argue, but Kotori just meets her eyes, and waits.

"You agree, then? I had thought so."

"What do you want me to do?"

"If you would, keep an eye on their duels. You've spectated often enough, you know the look of a loser. I'd like for you to report to me on their weakest duelists." Rio smiles, and flexes the fingers of her outstretched hand. "Will you take me up on my offer? I won't reward you, but it _is_ something only you can do."

Kotori steps forward, and clasps tight. "I'll do my best."

She knows it's awful, but the approval in Rio's cold smile made her feel warm. "Then you shall start tonight," Rio says, and doesn't let go of her hand just yet.

\---

Even if he was younger then, it doesn't go away that for a third of his life Haruto was used as Heartland's weapon.

It's because of that, that Kaito tries so hard to keep Haruto sheltered even now. Haruto doesn't have the heart to tell him it's okay. If he said, "Niisan, it doesn't bother me," Kaito would be able to tell it's true, and he'd know why, too. That would break his heart more than anything.

\---

He sleeps with Yuuma. III knows the warning signs and sounds, and has his hand over Yuuma's mouth to muffle his nightmare wracked cries before anyone else can wake. He holds him close to his chest, grateful that Yuuma never thrashes from all those years spent sleeping in a hammock, and pinches his nose shut. A few seconds suffocation is all it takes before Yuuma's eyes fly open in panic, and III removes his hand, letting Yuuma breathe hard, recovering his bearings.

"Thanks," he whispers, rolling back in closer.

"Nightmares are nothing to be ashamed about. I have them too," he confides, putting his arm around Yuuma again, a small barricade against the rest of the world. At some point, he'd gotten taller.

"But you never wake up yelling." Yuuma grumbles, ducking his head against him.

"Well, if I didn't wake you, neither would you," III points out with a small gentle smile, teasing lightly. Yuuma elbows him, and he laughs, quietly.

III wakes in cold sweats, twisted up in his clothes, sometimes, but he never yells. When he dreams of his old pains, he'd never had anyone to call out to. A long time ago, he'd been jealous of Yuuma, for having everything he'd wanted.

Now, he thinks it's easier this way.

\---

Alit won't fight dirty— his time puppetted by Vector, corrupted by Don Thousand was enough of that for him. He won't take Kotori's information, he won't stack his deck, he won't, he won't, he won't. He argues with Gilag about it whenever Gilag brings it up, and then drops it— if Alit won't change his mind (which he won't), they don't have much time left, and he doesn't want the last days of their friendship to be nothing but that fight had ad nauseum.

His skill gets him by, for a while, until his luck runs out.

Gilag never tells Yuuma, or the others, but they can tell. Why else would he be alone? He fights more angrily, after that, riled by the certainty that even if he _had_ tried harder, there would have been nothing he could do. It's as much an inevitability as a relief when he loses and his fate is sealed inside a card, too.

\---

In jerky, halting motions Shark takes Kaito by the collar, snarling and gnashing his teeth— infighting is the enemy but _traitors_ are the enemy too and Kaito is leaving, _now_? His conscience says he should feel bad about the bruise blossoming on Kaito's face, the red trickle from his nose, but his fury burns in satisfaction and it's his first victory in days that feels like it doesn't have pyrrhic attached. He hefts him off the ground, pins him so they're almost eye to eye. His voice is raw growl, "So that's it? You take your brother, and leave the rest of us to _die_ , you bastard?!"

Kaito, readable as a steel door didn't lower his eyes, unmoved and unmovable. He bashes him against the crumbling alley wall a second time, and spits, "Speak! Say something!!"

There's enough of a plea in it that Kaito responds. "Chris and Dr. Faker are going with us." Shark's grip on him slackens, and Kaito slides from his grasp, down to his feet.

The flare of righteousness in his chest is dying to coals of reproach, and his voice is blackened with it when he holds out a cloth for Kaito to wipe away the blood and speaks, "Can't they do whatever without you? You're a duelist! We—" I— his voice hitches, and throat tightens and the last of it tumbles from his lips, hushed, " _need_ you."

Kaito is unmoved. "You have other duelists."

"Half of us missing our key cards! Your deck's fine without your Numbers!"

"Then take it." Kaito's voice is flat, and he reaches for his deck. For a second Shark wants to punch him again, at the flippancy of giving away something so important _now_ , in this situation, out of some kind of spite until Kaito wavers for a moment and says, "Give it to Mizael."

Shark needs something to do with his hands so he doesn't punch the wall, so he takes the deck— he still feels resonance from the Galaxy-Eyes, the brightly burning starlight in what remains of his Barian core, or maybe it's just his heart hurting at Kaito's will. It's strong, and there's nothing in it that feels like its given up. But either way, it's not meant for him. "Finish whatever the hell project you're fucking off to work on quick. He's going to be a pain to deal with when he hears you've ditched." He could leave it there, but he doesn't want the next thing Kaito says to be about Mizael, so before he can help it he complains, "You're not going to tell me a damn thing about whatever it is that's so important for you to work on, are you?"

Kaito smirks, lopsided. Like the smile he coached for Haruto, bleeding into his Hunter's facade. Like it's a face tailored to reassure Ryouga, who _doesn't need it_. He hands back the bloody cloth, a barrier between his and Shark's hands on top of his deck and tells him, "I'm not getting your hopes up."

Shark mutters back, " _Too late_."

\---

The thin thread of sanity that had sewn Vector back together when the world didn't end— the first time— unravels quickly. He pulls apart viciously at the seams, leaving his jaunty bloodlust and manic depression a bladed mass that seeths beneath his skin and surfaces in the angles of his mouth and the shine of his eyes, when not with deeds wrought and lives undone with his hands. He smiles too much, too widely, and talks too much, too loudly for someone on wargrounds.

The good news is: he still loves Yuuma, or at least that's what Shark assumes it is, that keeps him from using both sides' blood as his bath water. That keeps his slaughter slightly less than indiscriminate — he checks for the fusion uniform before he makes his kills.

The Prince of Madness makes for an extremely vital ally, but Shark still hates dealing with him.

Like now, sticky with fresh spilled blood, Vector spins and stumbles drunkenly, laughing, onto Shark. He drapes himself heavy over Shark's shoulders, pressing his weight against all of his back. "Whoopsie~ Didja just scrub those?" he asks, sounding world-record levels of insincere. Shark didn't even know a human could manage to sound so fake outside of a duel idol's autotune. "Don't worry, don't worry! It looks like rain, and III _could_ be running late for rendezvous!" He claps him on the shoulder, cheerily, like a total asshole.

The bastard had timed this.

III is going to come with Yuuma, and then Yuuma is going to look them up and down, eyes wide in not shock— it's happened too many times for that— but horror because some things never change. And then his gaze won't fix on Vector, because Vector is himself and there's no getting around that, but he'll look at Shark and look disappointed. He gets his hopes up every time.

So Vector covered Shark's clothes in blood because _of course he did_. Shark plants a foot solidly forward on the pavement and turns on it as an anchor, spinning Vector off and aiming a fist at his face. Yuma and III were going to be annoyed with them anyway, and Vector takes the punch only because Shark's sudden turn tripped him, but he catches Shark's wrist and digs his nails in as a petty vengeance. Shark hisses at him, rearing back from his trapped wrist and throwing another punch, "What is your _problem?!_ "

"Me?" he mocks and lets go, drops to the floor and sweeps Shark's legs out from beneath him, and dives to secure both his wrists. "Hypocrite! There's something they say about glass houses, thrown stones, judge not!" He leans down, close enough Shark can feel the heat of each breath, the scattered freckles on Vector's face blurring out of focus, "There's _plenty_ you're guilty of, Nasch. Why not wear it where everyone can see it? They could tremble, fall to their knees, wet in fear, supplicant and—" he chokes and coughs, winded by Shark's knees jutting into his stomach.

He bucks and kicks Vector from atop him to the side, his wrists still held but their positions reversed. He levers his forearm against his throat, not crushing _yet_ but a threat, and all but spits at him, " _I'm not you_ ," as the rain Vector speculated drizzles at his back. Beneath him, Vector is dry. He can't speak with Shark's forearm against his windpipe, but he smiles. Lazily, eyebrows raised. He doesn't struggle, highlighting their current positions and Shark suddenly flushes as he remembers _he_ threw the first blow. Vector pinned him, but he didn't hit him or even try to.

" _Don't you dare._ You started this shit— and you know it! You're just trying to piss me off." Damn it. He should stop falling for it, his stupid baiting and petty taunts. He knows Vector is like this, but it doesn't stop his bullshit from getting to him.

He curses again, under his breath, as Vector's silence continues, and he doesn't make any moves to throw Shark from him. _Do something_ he thinks but Vector doesn't give him any excuses, other than the smugness of his face. It grates his nerves, and a muscle in his wrist twitches before he removes his arm from Vector's throat.

"Sooo~ _ooo_ o. . ." Vector says, all too casual, and in the seconds before he finishes that thought and his smile sharpens to a smirk Shark realizes he should have slammed his hands over his mouth earlier, not his neck, but it's too late. "How many points am I up to, now?"

Recoiling like he's been burned, he stands and leaves him lying there on the concrete, hyena laughter echoing behind him and remembers— shit, he can't _leave_ him there. All his noise might attract enemies and that would just prove Vector _right_ if he left him here, alone. He crosses back over and roughly grabs one of his hands, to pull him to his feet, but Vector shakes his grip off. His other arm is crossed over his face, hiding it from the now pelting rain. "Vector, get up!"

"No. Not going to— I don't want to." he says from the concrete.

"And what— I can't make you?" he snorts, "Get real. I'll drag you if that's what it takes. _Come on_ ," What the fuck is wrong with your mood swings? he doesn't ask.

Shark bends down, to do just that, when Vector rolls to the side, propped up on his elbows and stares into his eyes. "Hey, Nasch. You ever regret it?" It'd be easy to drag him like this, but Shark doesn't want to hold his hands while Vector's looking him in the eye.

He thinks he knows what he means, roughly, but being able to follow Vector's logical leaps and emotional lapses is a kind of defeat in and of itself, so he asks, shortly, "Regret what?"

"All of it. Losing, living, _this world_. Just _imagine_ :" he spreads his arms in what would be a grand gesture if he wasn't still spread on the cement, getting more and more sopping. His hair's in his eyes, water seeping from it in rivulets, down his face. " _like ants_ , the fusion faction, they all go marching one by one, two by two, mindless _insects_ into the great Chaos of the Barian world. They take their military machine and their great useless solid vision generators, and fire—" if his eyes match his voice, they're distant, exultant, but Shark can't see them through the curtain of Vector's dripping fringe. " _Uselessly_. Worse than useless, _traitorously_. Reflected, refracted light cuts into their ranks, decimates their troops, and they're nothing but _prey_ for the best of our hunting games. We show them the truth of Duel Monsters— flesh and force bowing to the bastard children of a dark god, not _hardened light_. Mizael's Tachyon Dragon is contented for weeks!" he heaves, breathing hard, and his voice stutters with manic laughter, as he asks, "You don't miss it!?"

"We're going to be late," he grinds out in answer, instead.

But Vector still isn't listening, and continues to rave, " _We wasted so much time_. Like Yuuma's pet astral being wrote out the war— _all wars_ , from the rind of reality. Built us up softer, sanded the edges off, so we could play pretend to be _better_ people, but _**they**_ peeled off that layer of delusion and there we were and the war was, just like it never left! It just closed its eyes for a while, and so we shut ours too, and _never saw it **coming**_." His knuckles are white from his fists clenched too tightly, and each word is heavier, more emphasized, like his human throat has turned to stone and he's drawing blood from it, slowly scraping. He rasps four more words, and stops, " _ **What were we doing?**_

Shark doesn't have a good answer for that. He just has the answer that he thinks is true. "Hoping."

Vector collapses in on himself, expression and limbs entirely slack for a moment that Shark wishes he had missed. He shudders, and climbs to his knees, "Fools. Got exactly what's deserved," and walks ahead, old blood still clinging to his back.

_\---_

Kotori leads Rio up from the sewers, a secret route to the last of the unscathed houses— upper class bastions whose residents had long fled (if they were lucky) but whose security had never been disabled. But even though Kotori knows the way, she doesn't know the codes— but Rio had promised her she had them. Stolen, or given from Kaito, she doesn't know, but she's grateful and excited, a little. Food gets scarcer, and canned goods are a positive luxury compared to eating literal crow.

She keeps lookout as Rio works, studiously clacking away at the keypad behind her. Their route should prevent pursuers, but there's no such thing as being too careful, anymore.

But maybe she overdid it, just a bit, because when Rio finishes and taps her on the shoulder Kotori jumps and swings back, preparing to cut and run, and Rio reflexively catches her hand— the way she'd prevent an assailant from playing a card by breaking their fingers, jolting them to the side with a quick push— but she realizes it's Kotori just before she does it and the aborted movement is familiar enough that Kotori remembers who it is. Both of them caught unbalanced, they fall into a heap against the wall, Rio braced above Kotori, collapsed in a heap below her.

Thier eyes meet in the dim light, both of them jittery from diverted panic, quiet except for the sound of their breathing and the sloshing of the water in the defunct canal behind them. Then— Kotori can't help herself, and bursts into giggles at Rio's serious face. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," she apologizes, not insincerely.

Rio's eyes widen, and then she smiles and pulls Kotori to her feet. "Shouldn't those be my words?"

Kotori pretends to think for a moment, turning towards the door Rio had cracked open, her hands folded behind her back, "Oh, maybe!"

"Well, then I suppose I'll have to apologize to you. But I've always found words to be cheap." Kotori hears more than she sees Rio's smirk, but she knows it's there. Even all these years later, she remembers Rio's first day on her return to school, everyone fawning over her as long as she spoke politely, but then she'd carefully taken the time to crush the school clubs, one after the other, until they were less enamored. Of course Rio would think that. "Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?"

Kotori peers around the door-frame into the long derelict house, just in case, before she enters. "Hmmm. . ." she thinks aloud. "Sweets! If you find any, you have to share with me."

"Just with you?" It's uncharacteristically selfish of Kotori, so Rio can tell Kotori doesn't think they'll actually find any. She resolves to definitely find Kotori something sweet. "Consider it done."

They cross the threshold into the store-room, from the hidden passage that had once been meant to use to escape during emergencies— not enter. Inside, everything is dusty, untouched. Boxes are labeled with things like "holiday decorations" and "stuffed animals"— little miscellanies squirreled away because they weren't needed, but no one wanted to throw them away, and they were kept for 'just in case'. It doesn't seem like anything they need, though Kotori's fingers brush the box of plushies, as she keeps pace with Rio and together they entered the main house.

They don't split up, and Rio had looked into the floor plans for the model houses before they'd entered. The kitchen with its pantry comes first— canned goods. They search for vitamin tablets and then whatever has the highest calorie count, with a label that doesn't yet indicate it's expired.

But after, Rio doesn't turn around, but presses forward, to the dining room. "Rio-san?" Kotori calls, roughly shoving her bag's contents around, making sure the zipper won't split when the bag is jostled. She needs to be able to run. "Something else there?" A moment later, she follows behind, curious at first, then she hears the brittle sound of porcelain falling, and hurries.

But it turns out there's nothing to have worried about— Rio is shoving a tea set in a glass display cabinet out of the way, reaching for something in the back. "Rio-san?" she asks, again.

"I don't make promises I have no intention of keeping. This is a western tea-set, so there should be—" she seizes an item of porcelain-ware from the back, "A sugar bowl!" and pulls it out, triumphantly as Kotori rushes to catch the toppling stack of cups and saucers.

"Careful!" she says, catching two and wincing as the rest crashed onto the floor.

"It won't be much longer for them, even without us. If we could get in, others will be able to, too, after. I'll re-enable the security but there's no guarantee as to how long it will function." Rio places the porcelain sugar bowl down on the white-table cloth of the table, and reaches to get the matching tongs.

"I know," Kotori agrees, setting the saucers beside it, and then, on impulse, reaches to get two of the matching cups. "But they're still here now, right? I changed my mind. I want a tea party." It might be our last chance, she didn't say. It's been so long since she'd seen anything like this, she almost doesn't believe she'd ever see anything this pristine again— unsmashed porcelain, glass with no cracks in it. Even with the dust, it is more perfect and clean than anything she'd seen in months.

With a glance at a steel-shuttered window of the house in lockdown, as if she was checking for the light of the sun outside and how much time they had, Rio— doesn't hesitate, because that wasn't like her— but considers it. Then she takes out a self-heating thermos of water from her bag, charged from the jolts of motion it took during the day, and places it on the table too. It was a wordless concession, and she sounds a little like her brother when she tells Kotori, "Remind me not to be in your debt too often."

Kotori claps, pleased, and settles herself down at the table, while Rio dusts out the cups and saucers, before going back to look for teas. "Black. So far as I've seen, there were no tins of condensed milk, but excuse me for a moment while I check again."

She busies herself as the thermos brought the water to a boil, and Kotori found the strainer. If she pretends, it could have been months before— maybe in Rio's old house, before they had cleaned it up, everything still dusty from being long abandoned. Though really, that would be years ago, when all the business they had with the Barian world had wrapped up.

The tins Rio had missed the first time materialize, and she returns, pouring the boiling tea out into their cups, and opens the milk tin, for either of them to make it to their tastes. The door behind her is left open, and a hair pin Kotori knows is an alarm is absent from her hair, but even that made it seem more normal. Like it was a time before everything Rio carries has some kind of dual function, or it she doesn't bother with them.

She pushes the sugar bowl towards Kotori. "Your sweets as requested, your highness."

Blushing, Kotori takes the bowl, even if it came with teasing, she isn't going to pass up the sugar cubes. "Don't make fun!"

"Is that what I was doing? You do know, in a tea room they would be referring to you similarly. I could try again. Perhaps. . . Lady Kotori?" Rio's sipping from her own cup is prim and proper, but doesn't hide a mischievous glitter in her eyes.

"Geeze!" Kotori whines, and then pushes the bowl back, remembering. "Hey, I wanted for us to share sweets. You take some too! It's only fair. You're not getting away with pushing it all onto me!"

"You're the only person I know that would complain about being given extra," Rio says, but she reaches in and draws two cubes out, between her fingers, and puts them on the side of her plate.

"That's not true. Yuuma would too!"

"Are sure? I remember _quite_ a few complaints of him being a lunch-box thief."

"Well . . ." Kotori trails off, stirring in another lump, "Aren't you going to have yours?"

Rio finishes her tea, and reaches for a cube with her spoon, before bringing it to her mouth. "Only so you'll be quiet about it." But she smiles and closes her eyes, letting it melt slowly on her tongue, and reaches for the second she placed aside without prompting.

Kotori laughs again, and finishes her tea as well, before grabbing for the leftovers in the bowl, and jamming them in her pocket. Sensing that they're done there, Rio stands up, with her cup and saucer in hand, and drops them unceremoniously to shatter against the marble of the dining room floor. Kotori jumps, startled at the sound and whirls around, to see Rio advance on the case she had gotten the tea set from in the first place.

"—Rio-san— what?" she can't quite articulate her thoughts, as Rio calmly knocks more of the plates to the ground, generating more debris. She winces. "What are you—"

"Would you like to help?" she looks over her shoulder, at Kotori, and Kotori hovers between Rio and what was left of the tea set on the table, protectively.

"Sorry, I don't. . . I don't get it. Why?" she places one hand over the tea cup.

"Having the temptation is a risk, Kotori-san." It's the cold part of Rio, the part that told her that her dueling efforts were worthless, but if she was willing to risk it, there was something else she could do. In the moments she hears that impartial imperious voice, she knows Rio is right, as she continues, "And wouldn't it hurt more, to come back and find the duel soldiers have stomped on our precious memories? I'd much rather finish this ourselves." She turns to face Kotori fully, watching her, unreadable.

"Oh." She understands. Part of it was Rio's need for control, to never leave anything a weakness, but part of it. . . "It's because we can't come back."

Rio nods, and some strangled part of Kotori wants to cry.

Instead, she helps Rio smash the dishes, chairs, and dining room table. The tablecloth she keeps for bandages, for later.


End file.
